solitary terminal spikelet. Spikelets many-flowered. Glumes imbricate all round or rarely distichous; the lowest 1–2 empty; the remainder all hermaphrodite, or the uppermost male or sterile. Hypogynous bristles wanting. Stamens 3, more rarely 2 or 1. Style often hairy or ciliate, with a bulbiform or conic base, deciduous; style-branches 3 or 2. Not obovoid, trigonous or biconvex, often narrowed at the base.
A large genus of about 130 species, found in all tropical or warm-temperate regions.
1. F. squarrosa, Vahl. Enum. ii. 289.—A slender more or less pubescent annual 2–8 in. high; stems numerous, tufted, striate. Leaves linear, setaceous, shorter than the steins. Umbel terminal, usually compound, 1–3 in. diam.; rays slender, unequal, 1–2 in. long; bracts 3–4, similar to the leaves, often exceeding the umbel. Spikelets numerous, on slender pedicels, ⅙–⅕ in. long, narrow-ovoid, brownish. Glumes elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, keeled, 3-nerved, more or less squarrose. Stamens 1 or 2. Style pubescent, the bulbiform base with numerous long hairs which hang over the nut and are closely appressed to it; style-branches 2. Nut about 1 the length of the glume, obovoid-oblong, biconvex, pale-yellow, smooth.
Var. velata, C. B. Clarke.—Nerves of the glumes almost fused into a solid keel, the excurrent tip not nearly so squarrose.—F. velata, R. Br. Prodr. 227; Hook, f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i, 272; Benth. Fl. Austral. vii. 309. F. dichotoma, Hook. f. Handb. N.Z. Fl. 803 (not of Vahl).
North Island: Auckland—Bay of Islands, Colenso! near Auckland(?), Sinclair; Port Waikato, Kirk! hot springs at Ohinemutu, Lake Rotorua, Kirk! T.F.C.; Lake Rotomahana, Filhol. Sea-level to 1000 ft. December–February.
The typical form of the species is found in most warm countries; the var. velata is restricted to eastern Australia and New Zealand.
6. SCIRPUS, Linn.
Glabrous annual or perennial herbs of very various habit, small and tufted, or tall and stout with a creeping rhizome. Leaves usually from near the base of the stem, long or short, sometimes reduced to appressed sheaths. Spikelets usually many-flowered, solitary or fascicled, or more numerous and umbellate or panicled. Glumes imbricate all round the rhachis; lowest 1 or 2 empty; several or many succeeding ones hermaphrodite and fruit-bearing; the uppermost sterile. Hypogynous bristles 3–8 or wanting. Stamens 3 or fewer. Style long or short, passing gradually into the nut; style-branches 2 or 3. Nut obovoid or broadly oblong, trigonous or plano-convex, sessile or nearly so.
